Navy IT initiative poses many questions for vendors

Nov. 11, 2013 - 02:55PM
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The Navy is asking vendors many questions about how they might help it consolidate data centers.

Among the questions posed to vendors in a new Navy request for information:

■ What are your recommended methods and mechanisms for the transition of Navy applications into a commercial, Navy or other government hosting environment?

■ How does industry manage security vulnerabilities to meet Navy and Department of Defense hosting standards?

■ What tools are available to ensure the security of Navy applications hosted in commercial environments?

■ What are the cost and security benefits of hosting applications in a commercial environment?

The Navy will also have to asses what skills it has in-house and how much it can invest in the consolidation initiative, said Edward Hsu, director of product marketing at VMware. His company is a proponent of the hybrid cloud model, where services are provided on-site at an agency’s facility as well as off-site by an outside provider.

Top of mind for the Navy is ensuring the data hosting model it uses aligns with NGEN, its new enterprise network for delivering secure voice, data, email and other services.

“The center needs to be able to plug into [the] NGEN environment,” said Bill Toti, vice president and executive for Navy and Marine Corps Accounts at HP. HP was awarded the NGEN contract in June and plans to compete for the data center work as well.

Under the NGEN contract, HP has six transition projects, including network operations centers and data centers operating under its continuity of services contract with the Navy. The transition is expected to run through December 2014 and will ensure that HP transitions to new service level agreements under NGEN.

In reference to the Navy’s data center consolidation efforts, Toti said “if it doesn’t connect with Navy’s network, then it’s useless to them.”